Google Fiber has a few inroads into less fortunate homes, such as its not-quite-free 5Mbps service, but it's still largely aimed at more affluent households. That's going to change very shortly, however: the White House has revealed ConnectHome, an effort that will bring free or inexpensive ($10 per month) broadband from Google, Sprint and other providers to over 275,000 low-income families in public housing. In Google's case, the service will be available in four of the 28 communities covered by the initiative (Atlanta, Durham, Kansas City and Nashville). All current and future Fiber cities will eventually offer similar service, too.

The Raspberry Pi has been a huge success story for Britain, giving millions of people an affordable way to tinker and learn with pocket-sized hardware. Now, the BBC is hoping to make a similar impact with the "Micro:bit." Like the Raspberry Pi, this tiny computer has been created to help youngsters learn the fundamentals of programming and computer construction. Today in London, the broadcaster unveiled the Micro:bit's final design -- a rectangular, credit card-style board measuring 4cm by 5cm -- and some of the all-important hardware features. These include 25 red LEDs, which can show messages and facilitate games, two programmable buttons, an on-board accelerometer and magnetometer. The device also offers Bluetooth LE connectivity, a microUSB slot and five input and output (I/O) rings that can be hooked up with crocodile clips and 4mm banana plugs. It's been a while since the original BBC Micro was considered cutting edge, but even so -- this new device is roughly 18 times faster and 67 times lighter than its spiritual predecessor.

If you want your kids to learn something while they're out of school but would rather not ship them to some distant summer camp, Google is about to come to your rescue. It's kicking off the latest edition of its annual Camp Google on July 13th, and this year's virtual educational event promises themed weeks that might just sate your young ones' curiosity on big scientific subjects. They'll learn what the ocean is like through underwater panoramas, for example, and watch live video chats with astronauts. The whole shebang is free, so it won't hurt to tune in if you want your children to go back to school knowing more than they did when they left.

Minecraft has proven to be an invaluable tool for educators and students. Not only is the game popular with children and adults, but its open, customisable nature means it can be used for all sorts of different purposes. Like learning to code, understanding Britain's geography and reimagining modern art. Microsoft clearly knows this, so it's launching a new portal where teachers can discuss the game and share classroom resources. The full site isn't live just yet, but the trailer below gives you an idea of what Microsoft and Mojang are aiming for. After this and its Hololens demonstration, it's clear the company sees its $2.5 billion acquisition as more than just a game with a guaranteed smash-hit sequel.

If students want to cheat their way through one of China's most difficult exams, they'll now need to thwart a patrolling drone. The National Higher Education Entrance Exam, known as "gaokao," is held each year and determines whether youngsters will get into the top universities. It's been described as the "world's toughest exam" and can be stressful, even traumatic for students trying to achieve higher grades. Some entrants, ingeniously, try to cheat by capturing their test questions and sending them to someone on the outside, before receiving the answers via an earpiece. Unsurprisingly, China wants to crack down on the practise, so one province is now using a drone to monitor radio activity. When a disturbance is detected, it can alert the invigilators and help determine the culprit's location. The penalties for cheating are fierce, so authorities are hoping the threat alone will be enough to encourage would-be cheaters to spend their free time cramming instead.

If you've developed a not-so-irrational fear of losing work opportunities to robots, you'd probably mistake RoboUniverse as a job fair. And you wouldn't be too far off. It's the first year for the three-day expo, which wraps up the New York portion of its tour today. The event was organized as a buyer/seller conference to show off progressive technology in the service robotics industry. We're a sucker for any event advertising "robots," so we decided to swing by to see what was bubbling up from industry, capturing a few photos along the way.Slideshow-286830

Seth Alter was a teacher for all of six months before quitting his job and going indie to make video games full-time. No Pineapple Left Behind, his second PC title, is more or less the story of why he left his students at a Boston charter school. As a special education math teacher, his sixth graders were expected to meet the same behavioral standards and educational expectations as their mainstreamed counterparts thanks to 2001's controversial No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which ties school funding to standardized test scores. Alter says that teacher evaluations are drawn from those scores as well. And because most charter schools are non-union, they can fire teachers for almost any reason, including low test scores from special-needs students who should have been held to modified standards in the first place. It doesn't take a genius to realize just how flawed that logic is: It's a system built to fail.

If you've ever seen a 6th grader lugging around a 30 pound backpack, you'll understand the allure of e-readers and tablets as a replacement for traditional textbooks. To help school districts make the digital transition from physical textbooks, Amazon launched Whispercast, a free content management and distribution tool. Schools can buy or rent books directly via the online tool and push them to anything that supports the Kindle app including: Kindles, Fire Tablets, iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and Chromebooks. Today, the free two year-old online tool gets an upgrade with tiered administration, support for purchase orders, an easier-to-use online interface and an assisted setup service for new schools.

Microsoft is sweetening the pot for schools looking to adopt its new hybrid tablet by giving them a 10 percent discount on the Surface 3, Type Cover and stylus. Normally, they cost $500, $130 and $50, respectively. On top of that, it's also offering a slightly cheaper Surface 3 model with just 32GB of memory and 2GB of RAM (the base Surface 3 has 64GB of storage). We don't yet know the price of that cheaper model, but expect it to be well below the $450 for the newly discounted 64GB Surface 3. Educational discounts aren't anything new -- it's already offering them for the Surface Pro 3, and it's something most other computer makers do -- but Microsoft is clearly trying to position the Surface 3 as an alternative to Chromebooks. Those cheaper Google-powered machines have been a huge hit in schools, thanks to their low prices and easy maintenance, but they can't run all of the software a full-fledged Windows machine can.

Look up the word bungled in a dictionary, and you'll find the definition of the word, so if you want to see what it looks like in practice, head to L.A.. The state's problematicprogram to get iPads into the hands of low-income students has backfired so spectacularly the school district is now looking for a complete refund. According to the L.A. Times, the state's education board has been having secret meetings with lawyers and has already told Apple and Pearson that it won't accept or pay for future deliveries of tablets and software.

Taking a college course online usually means you're attending class in your underwear while eating a third bowl of cereal. But some Rutgers students were surprised to find out they'd have to put on some pants to take their midterms, since their every move would be recorded via webcam. Plus, the system monitoring them would flag seemingly arbitrary infractions for review.

If your child is playing 18-rated games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, you could be reported to the police and social services. That's the message being sent to parents by a group of primary and secondary schools in Cheshire. In a letter, the Nantwich Education Partnership has warned parents about the levels of violence and sexual content that are prevalent in mature games. It says regular exposure could lead to "early sexualised behaviour" and leave children "vulnerable to sexual exploitation or extreme violence." Some parents have already voiced their disapproval, but headteachers say they're merely following the guidance set by their local authority: "If your child is allowed to have inappropriate access to any game or associated product that is designated 18+, we are advised to contact the police and children's social care as this is deemed neglectful."

Minecraft has been heralded for its focus on building, creativity and exploration. Players learn about architecture and construction, as well as the simple joy of self expression. The game's open nature has also given birth to countless mods that teach budding builders about coding, geography and art. Recognising its power as an educational tool, a free copy of the game is now being offered to every secondary school in Northern Ireland.

Razer's entry into virtual reality may not be as ballsy as HTC's or Samsung's, but it could be just as important. Back in January the gaming manufacturer revealed Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR), a project that offers a hardware design and software framework that anyone can build VR devices and apps from. Today, OSVR is announcing that more than 20 higher education facilities will join the initiative and be provided with development kits and the necessary support to create new experiences and hardware.

Wish your Xbox One could teach you more vocabulary than just "noob" or "get rekt?" It can now. Rosetta Stone has announced an Xbox One app that will teach you English or Spanish through simulated travel experiences. It also has phrase books, study advice, and cultural tips to keep you in locals' good graces. The app is available as we write, so give it a spin if you're willing to expand your mind after exploding some online rivals.

Navit Keren grew up in Israel. She's lived through the signing of historic peace treaties, and horrific terrorist attacks. Just as important though, she's witness to the dramatic deterioration of the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians. The biggest problem she sees, is a lack of empathy. Those living on the other side of the divide are not people, but enemies. "Others" to be feared and hated. Her effort to bridge the gap between the two sides is a pretty novel one: a location-based game. Welcome to the West Bank is merely a working title, but it gets right to the heart of the game. Israeli citizens, primarily teenagers, would play as Palestinian teenagers living in the West Bank. Basically she's asking people to walk a mile in someone else's virtual shoes.

Apple's dreams of putting iPads in classrooms have run into a number of roadblocks, but one of the biggest is simply the amount of work involved -- each slate needs its own account, making it a nightmare if you want to outfit an entire school. That won't be a problem for much longer, however. Both MacRumors and 9to5Mac have discovered that Apple is ditching the requirement for individual IDs on school-supplied iPads as of this fall. Staff will just have to decide which devices get apps or books, letting teachers focus on the actual education instead of getting things running. They'll still have plenty of control, so kids can't load up on games and other distractions unless they get the green light. It's too soon to know if this will lead to more kids taking home tablets instead of textbooks, but there will at least be fewer barriers to making that happen.

MakerBot has just launched a new initiative called Starter Lab, which makes 3D printing more accessible to more people, particularly students and employees. It's a bundle of MakerBot products, including several printers and other hardware, plastic filaments and training guides to help organizations get started. Acting CEO Frank Alfano says it can "help educational institutions prepare students to be more college and career ready." As for companies, he believes it can provide "a competitive advantage as an investment in future technology that fuels new ideas and growth." Chances are, this is part of the New York company's efforts to introduce both 3D printing and its brand to people who don't regularly read tech news.

Los Angeles' one-time dream of giving every student an iPad (or any device, for that matter) just got dashed. The city's school district superintendent, Ramon Cortines, tells the press that he doesn't believe LA "can afford" gadgets for each student. Instead, schools will fall back on a more conservative model that doles out hardware when kids need it for lessons and tests. The move is unfortunate if you like the idea of young learners having their own laptops and tablets, but there's no question that reviving earlier plans would have been daunting. The iPad effort was going to be expensive ($1.3 billion, at last count), and it ran into problems with misuse almost as soon as it began. Cortines suggests that the initiative reduced education to a "gimmick of the year" -- to him, device programs have to be sustainable.

The One Laptop Per Child project is going modular. The non-profit's Australian partner, One Education, is gearing up to launch a new hybrid laptop in a few weeks that will let you swap out components similar to Google's Project Ara. There aren't any official details yet, but Ink, Bits, and Pixels has managed to dig up several images that give us a basic sense of what's going on. Dubbed the XO-Infinity, it can be used as both a laptop and tablet; it shares the colorful aesthetic from current OLPC devices (XO-4 tablet and laptop); and it looks like even kids will be able to easily change its different modules. And, if it works as we expect, it could end up serving as a platform for an infinitely upgradeable machine that will last you for years, making it ideal for schools and international markets. One Education has confirmed that the XO-Infinity will be officially announced soon, but for now it's not revealing much else.

If you're teaching kids how to code, what do you do to show that software makes an impact in the real world? MIT has a clever idea: a robot garden. The project lets you control a grid of Arduino-linked "plants" through programming that makes them blossom and light up in pretty (and occasionally mesmerizing) ways. It'll even teach the virtues of distributed computing -- you can tell these leafy robots to bloom or change color in algorithm-driven sequences. The garden is just a demo for now, but it'll eventually turn into an easy-to-replicate curriculum for students who'd otherwise have to settle for seeing their results on-screen.

The audience for do-it-yourself computing might be larger than you think. The Raspberry Pi Foundation just revealed that it recently sold its 5 millionth mini computer -- not bad considering that the team had only delivered 1.75 million Raspberry Pis as of October 2013, or 16 months ago. The figure pales in comparison to what giant PC makers can do (Apple now sells over 5 million Macs per quarter), but it's impressive for a barebones board meant for schools and homebrew projects. In fact, the team notes that it could be the best-selling UK computer maker "ever."

After winning a Best of CES Award last month and then releasing what appears to be everyone's favorite new laptop, Dell is already back in the news: The company today announced not one, but four new products. And they run the gamut too, including a Chromebook, a Windows laptop and a tablet that runs either Android or Win 8. While this might seem like a random assortment, they all have this in common: They're aimed at classrooms, and were designed to take a beating from careless children.Slideshow-265895Slideshow-266460

Now's a pretty good time to be a New York City schoolkid. Microsoft has announced that all of the city's public school students (and their teachers) are getting free Office 365 ProPlus subscriptions -- if you qualify, you'll have five desktop and five mobile licenses as long as you're part of the local educational system. Ostensibly, the goal is to make sure that kids won't be "confined to the classroom" and can finish that big book report on any computer.

If you think your school is overly cautious when it makes you ditch your phone before a big test, you haven't seen anything yet. BuzzFeed News has learned that multiple universities have issued blanket bans on all watches during exams in case students are wearing smartwatches they could use to cheat. According to London's City University, it "wouldn't be practical" to have proctors checking every watch to make sure it's analog -- it's easier to make you write with bare arms. The move is unfortunate if you're used to glancing at your watch to gauge your progress, but it does make sense given how easy it is to get memos, text messages and other unfair advantages on your wrist. Whether or not you think smartwatch cheating represents a major problem, it's probably a good idea to leave that Pebble or ZenWatch at home during your mid-terms.